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[Dota 2] This week on Dota 2: Brood update, unreleased hero texture work, and PRD.
Skab
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cSFPIwMEq4What is this Dota you speak of?
Defense of the Ancents was originally created in Warcraft 3 by the mapmaker Eul, and was based off of the Starcraft custom game Aeon of Strife. When WC3: The Frozen Throne was released Eul stopped updating the map, which then caused a flood of different varients to appear across battle.net. Among them was DotA Allstars, which was created by Guinsoo, which became main version that we have today. During Guinsoos time, Pendragon came along and made dota-allstars.com in reponse to the need for a main dedicated website for the growing community. With version 6.01, Guinsoo passed authorship off to Icefrog, who started adding new heroes, items, mechanics and fixes, and still runs the game to this day.
Guinsoo and Pendragon would later go on to work at Riot and help create League of Legends, while Icefrog and Eul would go on to work at Valve and are now working on Dota 2.
Dota 2 is the sequel to that popular Warcraft 3 custom game that has since spawned an entire genre with the likes of League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth. If you have played either of those games then you have a basic idea of how things work.
Gameplay remains true to the original Dota, but takes advantage of everything the source engine and Steam have to offer. Besides better graphics, this means things like reconnecting, being able to spectate any match currently in progress even while waiting in que for matchmaking, and no longer having this happen to you
New to the game and want to learn? The following links will get you started. Dota has a massive learning curve, so you wont learn everything here, but it should be enough to get you on your feet.
(Credit for this list actually goes to Gully State over on Gaf.)
First
First Watch 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akUNmFAzS98
Map Guide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9QaEuQHSHk
Then read http://www.purgegamers.com/welcome-to-dota-you-suck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akUNmFAzS98Map Guide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9QaEuQHSHkThen read http://www.purgegamers.com/welcome-to-dota-you-suck
Second (Warning, these are long.)
How to spend starting gold 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k6XM4MlYts&feature=relmfu
Laning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54g5ej4NAek
Item Summary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9-qHJGIUvU
Warding for map vision
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgNHEEUmQYI&list=FLj7gHItNuttevJnGS6YSQuQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k6XM4MlYts&feature=relmfuLaning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54g5ej4NAekItem Summary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9-qHJGIUvUWarding for map vision
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgNHEEUmQYI&list=FLj7gHItNuttevJnGS6YSQuQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video"Hey, I'm freaking amazing at LoL so I should be good at this too, right?"
Not exactly. While at their core they are similar, there are some some key differences that make the meta/feel/pace different. Some of these include things like the way carry heroes work, denying, gold loss on death, towers behaving differently, runes, a larger map, a str/agi/int based stat system, more active/useable items, and more.
Heroes & Items
There are currently 108 heroes in Dota, and while all of them will be coming over to Dota 2, only about 3/4s of the hero pool is available in the current beta build. Currently we get about one new heroes a week, with Valve sometimes surprising us with either more or none at all.
Current hero pool: http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Heroes
Items: http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Items
Curious what heroes are on their way? http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Unreleased_Content
Other Useful Links
http://blog.dota2.com
http://www.joindota.com/en/start
Announcement art (also in the valve store as posters)
(This OP is a work in progress, more info will be added as more people are able to get their hands on the game.)
Skab on
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CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
EDIT: There was another small patch. Maybe there's a stealth fix.
(Source is Cyborgmatt, and preemptive "yes page not all of these will be seen but still NEAR DOUBLED HERO POOL")
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
Templar Assassin for president 2012!
The good news: Anti-Mage fell out of favor in the metagame!
The bad news? he's been replaced by Morphling.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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I also like that Tinker is back. Tinker is rad.
Primarily the idea that scourge has an inherent advantage because of the way roshan is placed on the map. Statistically, and I believe this is the cast in dota 1 as well, sentinel wins more games than scourge. According to dota academy's competitive stats, over the course of 1654 competitive dota 2 matches sentinel has 774 wins, while scourge has 765. Much more relevant is that the team with first pick (not first ban) has 799 wins vs 745 wins for second pick. Of course, picks and sides are always flipped between games anyway, so things even out in the end. Regardless, the roshan advantage really ain't that big of a deal.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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I guess this is the reason Riot deploys the term anti-fun?
Whatever, Techies for life.
(We come in peace!)
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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so skill bars are based on farm? that sorta makes sense... kinda... not really
There should be an option to just tell bots on your team where to go. Also to tell them whether or not they should be the one farming in lane. I know tweaking bots like this can't be very high on the priority list, but it'd be nice to have.
(source)
I'm sure it's old news but...
First game I did last night our Windrunner was 0-7 and just hit level 2 5 minutes into the match. Then my last game we had a Tidehunter do the same thing. He was with a friend who kept claiming it was my fault TH was dying. Yeah, cause me being top with Necro while I was lagging like crazy is totally what made TH die 7 times bot.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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is feed as meepo
I'm not even, but I've been playing so poorly that it still feels like it.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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God bless Venomancer and Sand King for being so good.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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I've been winning more than losing, but haven't felt like I've been playing all that well either. I'm only winning because I'm picking super strong heroes like Tide. Which is funny as the skill bar has me in the mid 1 bar range with him, but he's my most successful and well played hero at the moment. When I lose though, it's usually been pretty bad. I still can't carry either, which is going to be problem sooner than later.
Edit: The worse thing about playing Tide though is that everyone thinks they know how to play him better than you. People think I'm to liberal with my ult, hell if I'm about to die, I'm popping that shit, or if BH is going to get away, i'm popping it. It's CD is low enough that it will almost always be back up in time for team fight.
for the first like 5 months i had my dota invite i was doin amazing, mad win streaks, i was like +80 wins over losses
now i mean i am still +30 or so i think but it doesnt feel like it. going on my stats.dota2.be page every page of games i've had (which is 10 games long by default) has more losses on it than wins. so much red... so much red...
now naturally it is that very normal thing where you remember pain way easier than pleasure so you think you just lose all the time at this game but like, fuuuuuuuck i feel like i am playing like shit lately
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blink: 14 second cd, 1200 range blink (if used correctly) cannot be used if hero damage was sustained in the last 4 seconds.
force staff: 20 second cd, 600 range push, can be used on allies and enemies.
It would seem natural for many or most heroes to get a force staff over a blink dagger. Force staff has stats! It's cheaper! It has a better build up! It can save allies! It can be used in situations where blink dagger can't.
However, keep in mind that force staff only pushes the unit, while blink dagger actually blinks the unit. There is an important distinction! Pushing a unit doesn't disjoint shit, which means that every attack that hero was going to get hit by is still going to hit them. Blink dagger is a proper blink, so it disjoints 95% of projectiles and nukes. It can actually dodge stuff, which force staff can never do. This is especially important when you factor in that all items have 0 casting time. Blink dagger is even faster than am's blink.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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Oddly enough, my awareness of some of that was what was making me favor blink. Seeing that Lion be a colossal pain in the ass with both has convinced me that force doesn't stink, which I shouldn't have needed convincing of due to my time in HoN being an enormous jerk with Witch Hunter with one.
Possibly it is a Lion-specific thing, considering those two are brothers from a different mother, and all.